About xelba

Founded in 2017, xelba delivers hardware and software tools to help companies – from large enterprises to innovative SMEs – to transform the way that they deploy and integrate cutting edge IoT.

A new venture from a team of serial entrepreneurs and tech industry veterans, xelba is striving to be the world leader is making the future of connected technology accessible and available – today.

Team members

At xelba, we pride ourselves on having a cross-disciplinary team, whose core competencies complement one another, enabling a small but highly efficient operation.

Rakesh Gandhi

Chairman, CEO and Co-founder

Mr. Gandhi is a long standing international veteran of the technology industry, with more than three decades experience across innovations in semiconductors, communications, computing, software, ecommerce, printing, languages, multimedia, and security. His entrepreneurial journey began in instrumentation where he developed tools in measurement and built the corresponding computers for industrial applications. During the 80s and 90s, Mr Gandhi pioneered Apple’s business by forming multiple subsidiaries, joint ventures, manufacturing, research partnerships, and establishing an extensive reseller network in Asia.

Mr Gandhi thrives in bringing together pioneers of industry and business experts to make advances in technology commercial. This has been proven in numerous market exits, including: Selling software integral to the formation of Apple’s languages in 1986, the creation of an early iteration of ecommerce in the late 90s, and monetising the viral character Crazy Frog through video games where he successfully exited in 2007.

He is an advisor to government and industry in technology, and an advocate of free global trade. He has worked closely with numerous industry organisations and chambers of commerce in the US, Asia, and Europe.

Jan Petzel

Co-founder

Mr. Petzel is the Managing Partner of Eldon Capital, an investment and advisory firm focused on international growth investments and buy-out opportunities. Prior to launching Eldon, he was a Managing Director in the Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs, ultimately responsible for private credit in Germany and Scandinavia. Whilst at Goldman has served on the board of several successful companies including Cognis GmbH, a worldwide supplier of specialty chemicals and nutritional ingredients, up to its sale to BASF for €3.1bn in 2010. Mr. Petzel commenced his career as a consultant to the technology sector for McKinsey & Company working in the United States, Europe and Asia. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Master of Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and was a Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Damien D’Souza

Commercial Director

Damien is considered a pioneer in mobile and digital services. Offering over 35 years’ experience at senior and executive levels with some of the world’s leading blue chip companies (IBM, Ericsson Hutchison, Nokia, AEVI), he has extensive experience in the management of telecom, payments, digital media, technology and business services.

From cutting his teeth in the embryonic mobile data business in the 1990’s with IBM, to driving highly transactional global application and media businesses with Nokia and AEVI, he has grown and managed many businesses from concept to global operations driving revenues of hundreds of millions.

Ben Crawford

Creative Director and Co-founder

Award winning, multi-disciplined product designer and creative director, Ben has worked with many start-ups and SMEs to create and curate their product visions. He has also been involved in successfully supporting a number of fundraising rounds.

Previously, Ben worked on Hawk's Safety solution 'Monitor', which won gold in the What's in Store for Smart Kitchen Tech category at the 2016 Food Talk Awards. His product, 'Heat' was also a finalist in the British Hospitality Association's Hotelympia Innovation Awards in 2016.

Roberto Maggiora

Product Director and Co-founder

A software developer with more than 10 years’ experience across a number of industries, Roberto has previously worked as Head of Development and CTO for Sedit, Farweb and Tom – where he specialised in embedded systems.

Holding a Bachelor of Communication Science, Honours in Communication Marketing and Masters in Communication and Multimedia from the University of Bari, Roberto has extensive experience in leading teams; one project saw him head up a project to build a bespoke tracking and management application for the EU that manages tenders within the printing industry.

Tivian Mendes

Hardware Programme Manager

Tivian is an experienced programme manager, having delivered numerous projects across product development and manufacturing. He developed a successful importing business shipping from Bali to the UK, through which he gained extensive international knowledge in logistics and product-sourcing.

Emma Fenton-Wells

Head of Marketing

With more than 7 years’ experience in telling brand narratives and engaging audiences through the full marketing stack, Emma has produced award-winning projects and working for brands, including: Gamestop, L’Oréal, Imperial Tobacco, Sony PlayStation, Activision and Young Presidents’ Organisation.

Previously, Emma was responsible for the community launches of retail brand Zing Pop Culture, which now operates in five countries. She holds a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Queensland and a Master of Studies in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford.

Marco Severini

Programme & Operations Manager

Marco has 20+ years’ experience in programme and project management, R&D coordination and business management for highly specialised industrial automation solutions applied to several manufacturing industries.

He has a solid technical background, a complete understanding of design and implementation of automatic control systems for industrial processes and machinery, from small stand-alone solutions to complex and layered projects involving the interaction of different technologies, and extensive experience of operations in worldwide markets.

He launched and developed a successful start-up specialised in industrial automation solutions and managed one of the leading European players for automatic control system applied to the concrete and building materials industries.